Betsy Phillips's Blog, page 16

The Long Weekend

Y’all, I recorded a podcast episode, wrote an article, organized my photos for the book, cleaned my house, made some yarn, grocery shopped, got caught up on The Magnus Archives and almost finished this afghan.

[image error]Excuse my unmade bed, please.

I love this afghan so much. It’s kind of a mess, I guess, but all the yarn is so beautiful and I love how there’s so much to look at. I really hope the Professor likes it.

Push It Real Good

Yesterday I had such a good Thinking about America day, full of discussions about the American project and whether it can be salvaged.

I’m also listening to a podcast hosted by a wizard. I haven’t listened to it long enough to decide if I would recommend you listen to the podcast or not, but it’s interesting. His being a wizard is part actual magical belief and part performance art.

But a thing I do like about it is his goal is to move us all into a slightly better reality. He claims he’s not powerful enough to do much more than that, but that, if we all act with intention and verbalize that this is what we want and then make choices we hope will lead there, then, tada, there we’ll be.

Which is one of those things that is simultaneously so stupid and true.

But also maybe feels like what I can do about America that will actually have any effect.

Just push in the direction I want us to go.

And Now? Squares!

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The Professor’s afghan has veered off in a different direction from the other Bauhaus blanket I made. We’re going to get back to the bottom pattern in a little bit, but first, I want some squares.

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There’s something happening to me with this afghan that’s hard to explain, but I want to try anyway. Usually, when I make an afghan, I am following a pattern or I want the afghan to look a certain way.

But with this afghan, in part because I trust the Professor to at least appreciate the effort, I want the Professor to look at it certain ways. Look how this yarn I made looks when it’s this wide, next to this other yarn I made. Look at it running in this direction. Now look at it running in this other direction. Feel how the llama yarn is so soft. Feel all the bumps in the weird yarns.

And there is a feeling I have inside me that I can’t really name, but that I want The Professor and whoever else sees her afghan to also feel when they look at it.

Maybe that’s what it means to make art?

I mean, this could be bad art, too, but still…

Jim

I saw Jim Ridley yesterday, on Wedgewood, stumbling into the light from… I don’t know where. He was wearing a black suit and sun-glasses. He looked ovewhelmed. Maybe distressed.

I felt sick, like literally nauseous. I kept looking at him and I kept waiting for his features to resolve into something unfamiliar, the way they do when you’ve mistaken a stranger for a friend. Maybe it was because of the sunglasses, because I couldn’t see his eyes, but he never didn’t look like Jim anymore.

In order to keep from having a panic attack while I was driving, I had to go through all the reasons it couldn’t be Jim: I’ve never in my life seen Jim in a suit, let alone a black suit on a hot July day. But what if he were buried in one? Oh, right, he wasn’t buried. He was cremated.

And that let me go on. But it still unsettled the fuck out of me.

I know–I know–that was a real person. Someone who just weirdly resembled Jim and just happened to be knocking around a neighborhood he spent a lot of time in.

But man, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen something you can’t go back from seeing.

Why Are Men Great ‘Til They Have to Be Great?

Every time I hear that song on the radio I’m shocked. It’s such a profound and honest question that gets at the heart of what so many of us experience that it just seems impossible that society would let it be so plainly said.

A thing that struck me when I went back to Illinois is just how openly everyone assumes Trump’s an idiot. Like, even in deeply rural red Illinois, everyone seems to share the baseline assumption that dude sucks. This isn’t to say that folks might not still vote for him again–things are stupid and complicated–but you can just openly talk about how much you think he’s a dumbass and everyone nods along. Even if they don’t agree, they don’t object.

The thing that bugged me about that, though, was how I had this discomfort with it–even though I wholly agree–because I thought “You can’t say things like that publicly.”

And I worry that this is a way living in the South has changed me, perhaps made me more timid

But, frankly, I am afraid. In this particular moment, not in general. And I do worry that having the wrong opinions could get you in trouble and that the trouble it could get you in is growing worse.

I always have been kind of a coward, but we have to be great now and I don’t think I can be. Why am I great ’til I have to be great?

I Tease Because I Love

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I got to read on this cool stage last night. I wore my sparkly blue eye shadow. I talked to a poet new to town.

I developed a tiny, fleeting crush on the bouncer.

Weird Thing

I was at the library to look for one last Banner photo for the book, waiting on the one working microfilm machine, which was being used by a little old lady and a man she was with.

They apologized for taking so long. I said it was fine. I was just looking for a picture of a bomber. I had time. They said they were researching something from 1957.

Well, shoot, I’ve spent a lot of time in 1957.

Y’all, she was one of the last, if not the last, living teacher from Hattie Cotton the day it was bombed.

She’s researching the bombing.

What are the chances of that?

Unnatural

I swear, this isn’t going to become me only complaining about my dad. I just need to put this stuff down and have it public so that I resist the urge to tell myself a story where he’s only mostly good and sweet and where I should be able to live with the bad stuff, where “live with the bad stuff” means they come here.

But also, he made comments about me being single and then, when I was holding the baby, made some comment about how I certainly have the right parts to care for a baby, but mine are broken or something.

I keep thinking of my therapist’s advice to name my emotions. Like, when I think about this shit, how does it make me feel? And, in general, I can’t tell what I feel. I feel the emotional equivalent of a scream you hear in the distance and you can’t tell if it’s hurt or rage.

But when I stop to think about it, I feel incredulous. How can you love someone and say this shit about them? Like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

The 50th

It went great. Both days went great. Everyone behaved themselves. My mom was okay healthwise. I got to meet my new baby niece, Dahlia.

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My Aunt B. was so super helpful. She brought ice and helped get the food and basically just made sure everything happened.

Both Dad and Del ended up bleeding. I don’t think they had a knife fight or anything, but babies and old people are delicate and don’t pay a lot of attention to where they are in relation to sharp things.

And it was tough. I saw my best friend from junior high who was as hilarious and cool as ever. She works part-time at a grocery store in the town we grew up in.

I kind of felt like I couldn’t even talk to her about my life, because it would seem like bragging. It was hard. This person who changed my life for the better. I mean, I’m here because we were awkward and funny together and into weird, spooky shit. And I just felt like I didn’t know how to talk to her and that felt shitty.

And though my dad was on his best behavior, he was still a lot. I thought I smelled weird and I wanted to put powder or something in my shoes to see if that would help. I was also concerned because thinking I smell bad is like step one in the anxiety avalanche that leads to a panic attack.

So, I’m both trying to address the fact that I may genuinely smell weird and to sort out whether I’m about to melt down. And he says “Don’t worry, no one is going to smell your shoes. This isn’t Nashville, where everyone kisses your feet.”

And he was so mean about it that I couldn’t even take it seriously.

And, of course, he didn’t say thank you and he accused me of trying to get my mom to guilt him into paying for it (which I didn’t, and he didn’t, so?)

But he had a good time and he was mostly well-behaved and that meant a lot to me. I mean, I think he did as well as he can do.

He doesn’t like me. He loves me. I don’t doubt that. But he doesn’t like women and I’m a woman. And I feel sorry for him. And I think he knows that and resents it.

But also, he doesn’t know how to be happy, because being happy means risking being vulnerable, so I know he was as far out of his comfort zone as he could go.

It’s all complicated and stupid.

I’m glad I did it. But it didn’t fix or change anything. And all the outside validation didn’t really mean as much to me as maybe I was hoping.

But it also told me something I need to know as we move into the next stage of our lives: nothing I do, no matter how great, will be good enough. Everything my brother does, no matter how little, is extraordinary.

If I let them move here, that will grind me down into dust. Especially with the Butcher gone.

They cannot come here. If they have to live with/near someone, one of the boys is going to have to do it, because I won’t survive it.

I feel weirdly free. I tried my hardest. I did something extraordinary. I know it. Everyone there knew it. And it wasn’t enough to fix things.

So, there is nothing I can do that can fix things.

And trying will kill me, so I don’t have to try.

I love them. It’s a small thing, but it’s all I’ve got.

Off to Illinois

I’m going to throw a 50th Wedding Anniversary party for my parents.

Send good vibes my way, please.